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Friday, April 26, 2013

The Paris Peace Accords, ending the War
in Vietnam, were signed on January 27, 1973. The four parties to
this conflict agreed to the unconditional withdrawal of U.S. troops
from Vietnam and to “support the healing of the wounds of war.”

Despite that Agreement, the war
continued until April 1975.

The promises efforts for healing would
not begin for decades. Third generation Vietnamese, born today,
enter the world with deformities because their grandfathers were
exposed to chemical agent orange. Children are losing life and limbs
because they live in a village where a buried unexploded ordinance is
unearthed during an ordinary play day.

When these buried bombs explode, a
lifetime of new suffering is created. For these victims, the war has
continued.

Rennie Davis, one of the Chicago Seven,
an organizer of the Anti-War Movement of the 60's and 70's, flew to
Vietnam this last January to celebrate the 40th
anniversary of the signing of the Paris Peace Accords. He landed in
a Vietnam which still faces the impact of a war two generations
ended. The 40th Anniversary commemoration of
the signing of the Paris Peace Accord in Vietnam was a national
ceremony that included past and present political and
military leadership. Their nation-wide moment for rememberance was
not covered in the United States.

But here in Ashtabula,
and across our country, we face many of the same problems which still
confront Vietnam and the solutions now being applied there to the
continuing presence of toxic waste can also solve problems here.

Vietnam's land and water was impacted
by toxic waste, Agent Orange among these. The dioxin-contaminated
soil persists, but ways have been identified for remediation which
leave the soil cleansed of contaminants, fertile, and renewed. This
gift for peace brings blessings which can change our lives, too.

The same process identified and now in
use in Vietnam provides the means for dealing with all the toxic
waste left here in Ashtabula from World War II and the War in
Vietnam. Our soil and water, once treated, can also be left clean
and fertile.

After Vietnam ended Rennie moved on to
very different work in corporate America. Understanding the problems
he had begun looking for answers. Today, the technologies he
identified are proven, tested and being used in Vietnam. These same
tools can serve us as well.

Ashtabula can recover and find new
prosperity from places none of us imagined.

Friday, April 19, 2013

As the harsh storms of winter subside
we approach the 238th anniversary of an event in American
history which provides insight and direction badly needed today. On
April 19, 1775 a musket was discharged, beginning a clash of arms
over a small bridge standing astride the stream at Concord,
Massachusetts. We have all seen the statues and, perhaps, remember
the poems.

To this day no one knows who fired the shot. But
the unfolding clash shocked the British Crown and set the stage for
the first nation on Earth who proclaimed the principle of universal
freedom in July of the next year.

This was not a government
operation. These were a people who recognized the power was within
them.

Perhaps the best lesson to be drawn from those events,
which we have allowed to be obscured through the misted lens of time,
is that this marked a moment when the people did it themselves. By so
doing, they confounded the greatest power then existing on Earth.

The people had come together to
determine their course thorough the Committees of Correspondence. In
most towns across the colonies small groups met and discussed all of
the reasons for action and their options. Today, the parallel method
would be the Internet.

The British had been emboldened by
their success in seizing the colonist's powder, read this
'ammunition,' held in Portsmouth, New Hampshire the year before.
With their supply of munitions cut off from capture of the Fort
William And Mary, the colonists were determined to be prepared. Town
folk armed themselves and turned out to practice.

The British Empire had 8,000 men under
arms across the globe. A far smaller number were serving the Crown in
New England. That, the Crown felt, was entirely sufficient.

At
the close of day, April 19, 1775, 10,000 Americans were marching
towards Lexington and Concord, muskets, knives, and hammers in hand,
prepared to die to win their freedom.

Women who helped their husbands,
fathers, grandfathers and sons ready themselves, packing their
pouches with food, filling containers with water, understood the
danger they, too, faced. This was not a war fought far away, but one
which would shatter families, homes and destroy their businesses and
the food they relied on for winter.

They were a people who understood the
value of freedom to each, as part of their nature granted, not by a
king, but by God.

Friday, April 12, 2013

Did you ever stop to wonder what it was
like to grow up with a father who worked for the CIA?

Peter Janney answers this question in
his book, “Mary's Mosaic,”
which begins with his memories of being told of the murder of Mary
Pinchot Meyer, the mother of his best friend, Michael Meyer, whose
first thought was to comfort him when Michael was killed December 18,
1956, while crossing the street in front of the Meyer home in McLean,
Virginia.

Peter's father was Wistar Janney, a
former prominent advocate for peace, who went to work for the agency
at its inception. This decision eventually ended his marriage to
Mary, who remained an advocate for ending war.

The two boys, then nine years old had
been inseparable. Cord Meyer, Michael's father, was also highly
placed in the CIA.

Mary's murder was first characterized
by police as a failed sexual assault and blamed on a meek black man
who was near the site. Ray Crump. As the evidence falls apart the
prosecution of Crump continues, ending in a verdict of innocent but
providing, years later, additional facts Janney uses to piece
together a mosaic which includes evidence the CIA, directly including
Meyer and Peter's father, Wistar Janney, were involved in both the
assassination of John F. Kenney and the murder of Mary Pinchot Meyer.

Mary and Jack had been well-acquainted
since their college years and became lovers.

Kennedy, impacted by the outcome of the
Cuban Missile Crisis, had unilaterally announced the end of
atmospheric nuclear testing in June 1963 with his speech, Strategy
of Peace, given as the commencement address at American
University, June 10, 1963, in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis,
October 14 – 28, 1962, an event which brought the world to the
brink of nuclear war.

The Warren Commission Report, made
public September 27, 1964 contradicted what Mary, herself, knew,
focusing her on understanding what had really happened. This caused
her to confront her former husband, bringing about her carefully
orchestrated death because she would not be silent.

The book takes you through Peter's
journey, beginning as an attempt to cope with the lies he realizes
his parents told him surrounding the loss of Mary Pinchot Meyer. His
story takes you through the inner world of the CIA from the
perspective of a child who, needs answers. In Peter's words, that
world emerges into our sight.

Friday, April 5, 2013

The number of homes in Ashtabula which
have been demolished because they were abandoned and, in the course
of time, became too damaged to be saved, is astonishing and
heartrending. I was emailed a list, by address, after a meeting held
at the Municipal Building on Main Street. Later that evening, I
entered the addresses on a Google Map.

Sometimes, there was only one little
blue marker on a block, sometimes there were several. Each one
marked the end of a house where people lived, raised their family,
and dreamed of better things.

I went into the meeting knowing the
loss of homes to the downward spiral of job loss had been going on
for decades. Seeing it on the map made it seem more immediate and
real. Everyone in the meeting shared the same concerns and wanted
solutions, ways to save homes from what Ashtabula, and America, is
facing.

Levette Hennigan, Ann Stranman, Rick
Balog, Jim Trisket, and Earl B Tucker and I sat around a table,
talking about how Ashtabula had once been. We talked about bringing
commerce back. My partner, Nathan MacPherson, and I have been
working on this for some time now. Nathan lives in San Diego. Now,
he knows a lot about Ashtabula.

Jim mentioned a call which was received
from a resident in Ashtabula, telling the city to take their home.
They were leaving and would not even attempt to sell it. Both the
husband and wife had jobs lined up in Oregon.

The meeting had begun with discussion
of Deep Green Passive building. Rapidly, the subject turned to the
need for jobs. Ashtabula needs jobs – and qualified investors need
someplace to put their money which is safe from the predators
haunting the stock exchange and the threats hanging over our banks
today. We want them to invest here, in Ashtabula, producing clean
technologies.

After the meeting Earl told us about
his ancestor, a Civil War officer who wrote Taps. He has been in
Ashtabula all of his life.

The Industrial Revolution began in Ohio
after the Erie Canal was built, connecting Ashtabula to New York and
Great Lakes through its deep harbor of Ashtabula. Once the third
largest port in the world, it was alive with ships moving cargo
around the world.

This time, the cargoes will be
different, including solar power arrays, and building materials which
will last for generations.

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Ashtabula, once the largest deep water port in the world, is filled with stories and unexpected strengths. We come from all parts of the world and every one of us has stories to share. Some of these harken back to our own ethnic roots, others are more general, but they are all worth knowing.

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